21 spatial mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier for mode division multiplexing transmission.

We experimentally demonstrate a 12-mode group (21 spatial mode) cladding-pumped few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier. The differential modal gain (DMG) is dramatically reduced by using the double cladding erbium-doped fiber (DC-EDF) with a refractive index trench structure, which helps to tightly confine all 21 spatial modes in the core and to mitigate the bending loss. Our experimental results show that the DMG gain is about 3 dB when the average signal modal gain for all 12 mode groups is up to 15 dB across the C-band. Our method of using a DC-EDF with a properly designed trench structure can be used to develop gain equalized few-mode amplifiers supporting more spatial modes.